FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



859 



ble enumerator of values, the after benefits 

 to mankind of such an event might compen- 

 sate for all the disaster it would temporarily 

 cost. The speaker declared our present civ- 

 ilization not abreast of the knowledge of the 

 time and not yielding to mankind nearly the 

 amount of comfoi-t and well-being it might 

 be made to do. As examples of its defects 

 shown in the improvident tendencies of mod- 

 ern life, the speaker cited the waste of war- 

 fare and armament, the decadence of races, 

 pernicious competition, spendthrift luxury, 

 the blight of parasitism, the power of super- 

 stition, and the diversity of languages. 



Legislation against Insects and Fangi. 



Referring to the principles upon which legis- 

 lation against insects and fungi injurious to 

 vegetation rests, and recognizing that such 

 laws are effective only to a limited extent. 

 Garden and Forest suggests that " it does 

 not follow that because the enforcement of 

 a law is not certain it is therefore unwise to 

 enact it. It is true that habitual disobedi- 

 ence to any law breeds to a certain extent 

 contempt for all laws, but it is also true that 

 the expression of the intelligence of a com- 

 monwealth on its statute book is of itself an 

 educating force. Laws against forest fires, 

 for instance, help to instruct people who 

 have never given the subject attention as to 

 the enormous amount of property fires sweep 

 away. It has been estimated that a million 

 and a half of dollars every day would not 

 pay for the losses inflicted upon agriculture 

 throughout the United States from insects 

 and fungous diseases. ... If we are not 

 yet prepared to enforce wholesome laws to 

 prevent this loss, we certainly ought to do 

 everything possible toward creating a senti- 

 ment that will enforce them." The assump- 

 tion on which these laws rest is defined to be 

 that no man has a right to permit his prem- 

 ises to be a breeding ground for pests which 

 will bring loss upon his neighbors when by 

 due diligence he can prevent this. If the 

 trouble does not come from his own care- 

 lessness, it is right that the state should pay 

 him as it pays for the destruction of dis- 

 eased cattle. 



Vegetation of the Mammotli Cave. 



Notes have been taken by R. Ellsworth Call, 

 during frequent visits to the Mammoth Cave, 



of its flora ; but the list, even including the 

 molds and mildews found growing upon the 

 remains of lunches taken in by parties, is a 

 meager one. The plants are, of course, all 

 cryptogams. Several of the forms occur in 

 the greatest abundance in the region beyond 

 the rivers of the cave, because, probably, 

 many spores are introduced with the lunches. 

 A small Peziza on very old, water-soaked 

 timbers in the Mammoth Dome still persists 

 in presenting reddish coloration, notwith- 

 standing that the forms at present found 

 must repi'esent a generation quite remote 

 from the one originally introduced. In some 

 places the great white patches of Mucor 

 niucedo ai-e conspicuous by their size and 

 great delicacy. Over the Bottomless Pit this 

 fungus hangs down in long festoons of a 

 white cottony consistence. In other places 

 it runs wild over the soil surrounding decay- 

 ing timbers. These forms are the most con- 

 spicuous in the wastes of the cave, but are 

 often passed by, being mistaken for sheets 

 or balls of white paper. Some of the forms 

 of fungi are common to mines, where they 

 grow under similar conditions to those pre- 

 vailing in the Mammoth Cave. The constant 

 temperature of the cave, 54, is somewhat 

 below that adapted to the abundant produc- 

 tion of most forms of lower fungi. 



Wreaths, While the modern English 

 limit the use of wreaths to funeral purposes, 

 it was, as Mr. Talfourd Ely shows in his 

 paper read before the Archaeological Insti- 

 tute, among the ancients a sign of feasting 

 and joy ; and if their dead were crowned, it 

 was to mark them as still partaking of the 

 pleasures of this world. Religion originally 

 prompted the use of the garland, which may 

 have been connected with the widespread 

 belief in the supernatural powers of trees 

 and plants. Wreaths were employed as 

 bandages to assuage headache resulting from 

 debauch, and certain plants were believed to 

 exercise a prophylactic power against the 

 effects of wine. Floral decoration plays a 

 great part in Greek poetry, while among the 

 early Romans the use of wreaths in public 

 was limited to religious functions and as 

 marks of distinction connected with services 

 performed to the state a function largely 

 derived from the Etruscans. In Greece the 

 single wreath of ohve, etc., as a reward for 



